Tiberium

Tiberium sat cross-legged on the Great Log, reflecting on the deepest mysteries of the open Foror's in his left hand, when he saw Will Smith crossing the Durotar plain towards him. He lifted his free hand in greeting as his compatriot neared.

"Hey Will," he said.

"Hey." Will kept his eyes low and shifting, away from Tiberium's gaze.

Tiberium dipped his head to the left, peering up at Will. "What's wrong?"

"I, uh." Will scuffed his foot in the dirt. "I don't know how to say this, so I guess I have to just say it." He drew in a breath, tan vest stretching with the expansion of his chest, then forced it hard out of his nose. His eyes finally rose to meet his friend's. "I'm leaving."

The book snapped shut in Tiberium's hand. His leg bounced once. He stared at Will, saying nothing.

"I'm sorry, man, I really am. This has been the greatest experience of my life, you know. I'll always take what I've learned from this, and from you, with me wherever I go. Everything you've done for me here, the way we've worked to bring peace and some prosperity to everyone left here on Mannoroth, to keep them safe from the manipulations of transfers, it's left me with a sense of fulfillment and self-awareness that I couldn't have gotten any other way."

Tiberium's jaw shook briefly. "But our Foror's study..."

"Don't think I'd ever forget about the wisdom of the Foror's." Will walked over and sat on the Log, fingers resting on Tiberium's leg. "I won't just take that wisdom with me, I'll try and share it wherever I go. There are so many things people can learn from it, even if they just take the most important parts."

'Ye have put off the old man with his deeds:And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:Where there is neither Troll nor Elf, frost shock nor earth shock, Warrior, Mage, raid nor PvP: but Foror is all, and in all.'

Or Coronations 1:27:

'Foror hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and Foror hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, so that the wise and mighty learn that the weak and foolish must be frost shocked into submission.'

And you know a lot of people need to hear Ephemerals 4:11:

'He gave some, priests; and some, shamans; and some, paladins; and some, mages and warlocks;For the perfecting of the raids, for the work of the guild leaders, for the edifying of the body of Foror:Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of Azeroth, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Foror:That we henceforth be no more nubcakes, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of trade chat, by the sleight of forum trolls, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.'

That was our favorite. I'll never forget it, and I'll pass it on to everyone I can. The Foror's will always be with me."

"But Will." Tiberium's voice could not surpass a rumbling whisper. "The fight isn't over. They keep coming, and we have to keep working to send them all to Firetree. We need you. I need you. I can't do this alone."

Will wrapped his hand around Tiberium's wrist. "You won't be alone. You still have the Foror's."

"The Foror's." Tiberium gazed down at the great book. "I never thought I would find a weakness in the Foror's, Will. But it can't walk around and marshal the troops. We need to do that. You and I."

Will glanced away, shaking his head. "You knew I couldn't say forever. Earth is my home. I have to go back sometime."

"But now?"

"It's time. I can grow more as a person putting what I've learned to work back there than I can here. And I think that Kowz guy is going to make a good lieutenant for you. The movement won't miss a beat without me."

Tiberium turned, just a little, putting Will in peripheral vision. "Kowz is good," he admitted. "But he can't Bel-Air like you do. No one can."

"I'm sorry." Will pulled his hand away, then, after a moment, slid off his vest and held it out to Tiberium. "Take it," he said.

Tiberium frowned. "What are you giving me this for?"

"I thought, you know, you could keep it as a memento. Maybe put it on if you ever really, really felt like you needed me in a fight. Then it'd be like I was there, in a way."

Tiberium took the vest, chuckling. "Sure you didn't just want to show off those ungodly abs again?"

Will grinned. "That's never a bad thing, I suppose. Besides, if they find me shirtless, it's easier to say I got kidnapped and drugged or hit on the head when I tried to escape."

"Yeah." Tiberium held the vest in his lap. "You're really going."

"Yeah."

Tiberium hesitated, then held out a fist. "For Foror's."

Will bumped the fist with his own. "For Foror's."

"Get outta here, movie star."

Will ruffled Tiberium's mohawk and slid off the Log. "Later, Tiberium." He strode across the plain, just the way he had come, until he became a figure, a blur, a speck, and nothing.

Tiberium flipped the Foror's back open to the Book of Hysterectomy. He began to read, but in the end, found himself staring out across the sparse grassland one more time.

(Tiberium and Will Smith leading a band of road warriors to fend off "non-locals" in a post-apocalyptic Mannoroth)

The last defenders of ruined Orgrimmar watched the space goat in the metal mask, sweat beading along his bare arms and evaporating up towards the desert sun that beckoned it. Gyrocopters descended to the ground behind him, the swift whip of propellers chasing dust across the barren waste. He extended his arms out to his sides and called out to them, down what remained of Nub Dueler Boulevard.

"I am told you wish to take the mana batteries out of this wasteland," he said. "I am told you set out this morning to find a vehicle. A vehicle big enough for that fat load of batteries."

At the front of the defenders' ragged host, Will Smith glanced at Tiberium. "Did you spam Barrens chat asking if anyone had a kodo with extra-large saddlebags?" he asked.

"Probably not," Tiberium said.

A mohawked man to the side of the space goat in the mask fired a crossbow bolt clean through the body of a perfectly neutral rat.

"You see!" shrieked a hidden voice from amongst the fading clamor of the gyrocopters' motors. "The Enormous rules the wasteland!"

"Alright, I'm done with this," said Will Smith, storming halfway down the road. "Who the hell are you transfers? Why would you come here? This server is busted as hell! All of you made it take five minutes to vendor anything, and the vendors got so pissed they packed up and left. Same for the innkeeper, the auction house runners, and everyone else we need to do anything here. We can't even kick your asses because of all the lag! Get the hell off our server! You've ruined it! Leave our mana batteries alone! They're all we got left!"

The space goat let out a low rumbling sound, like the laugh of a being that had never known humor. "That means you still have something, which we will have soon enough. Don't try to leave, Mr. Smith, Tiberium- both of your city's exits are watched with enough AOE to overcome even the filthiest lag. If you give us the batteries, however, we will let you leave. Perhaps the situation in Thousand Needles will be more palatable."

"That sounds pretty good," said the level 19 orc warlock twink Rickastley, before Tiberium frost shocked his ass into a red mark on the wall.

"You don't get it, do you!" screamed Will Smith. "This ain't about who lives where anymore! This is about all you transfers showing up somewhere that you're not wanted and ruining the lives of all the proud Mannorothians who made this a place you'd want to come to in the first place!

"You think we can't fight back? You think you got one over on us? Yo, Tiberium, let's do this right."

When it was over, not a trace of The Enormous' force remained. The Orgrimmar defenders celebrated that night with twelve cases of Natty Ice, the only beer that can survive an unrefrigerated apocalypse. And all was right with the server.

"I'll give you one last chance, Tiberium," said Chuck Norris, the words echoing out from the deep confines of his beard. "You were the only student I ever had who mastered the roundhouse kick, but you've used your powers to spam darkness across the land. Renounce this path and come back into the fold, or I'll have no choice but to stop you, once and for all."

"Come back?" Tiberium laughed, a throaty rumble that sounded like the pages of an epic book rustling in the breeze. "I know a greater force now, Chuck. Your roundhouse kicks are good, I'll give you that. But now I combine them with the power of-"

"Don't say that name in my presence! " snarled Chuck Norris.

"What's wrong, Chuck? If you're scared of that, how will you deal with FROST SHOCK!"

Tiberium knew the tactics of Chuck Norris, knew he could be caught flat-footed; but Chuck Norris just opened his mouth and ate the frost shock whole.

"Mm," said Chuck Norris, absolute-zero icicles resting on the edges of his immovable beard. "Tastes like cherries. But I suppose that makes sense, doesn't it, Dr. L337?"

"Ha! So you know about my not-exactly-a-secret. Is that the problem, Chuck? Your born-again style making you a little jealous of my LAIDS?"

"You weaken yourself with the company you keep, Tiberium." Chuck Norris threw a right cross so hard that it broke one of the rocks in Tiberium's earth shield, then watched the other two crumble and disintegrate in fright.

"Maybe you haven't completely lost your touch, old man." Tiberium snorted. "But you know that there's only one weapon you have that can defeat me. Why won't you use it? Scared of what it can do? Or are you scared it won't be enough in the face of-"

"I'm warning you, Tiberium!" Chuck Norris' voice radiated such power that even his beard shrank away from his mouth.

"Come on, Chuck! You think I'm all brute force, don't you? You think I lack the capability to be subtle?" Tiberium flame shocked the ice off Chuck Norris' beard. "I remember all your lessons. They just aren't any fun."

"Fun? You think this is fun? You've derailed the entire ideal of common decency! If you're not stopped, that train will continue running off its track for the next thousand years!"

"Then stop me, Chuck! Or face the wrath of-"

The time was nigh; there was nothing else to be done, now. "Roundhouse kick!"

"[Foror's Compendium of Dragon Slaying]!"

--------

Chuck Norris lay on his back, his head bent at an unnatural angle to the right. All he could see, unto the curve of the earth, was dust and ash. In peripheral vision the prone foot of Tiberium twitched twice, then ceased to move.

It was done. He swore he would give his life, if necessary, to protect the common good against Foror's and Thundercats spam for the next forty generations. Chuck Norris could finally go in peace, to serve his beloved God in the glory of Heaven above for all eternity.

It was not until his eyes started to close for the final time that Tiberium ankhed, laughed, and walked away. Somewhere in the distance, a terrible rapper shouted about Thundercats. And as he fell into the abyss of final sleep, Chuck Norris thought about nothing, save the great purple book that he knew would end the world.

(Senior Tiberium asks prom queen to marry him, decked at graduation speech three days later by queen's BF)

"And the King and Queen of this year's senior class are... Jill, and our class valedictorian, Tiberium!"

The pair ascended to the stage, Her Majesty resplendent in a white dress of chiffon or taffeta or some bullshit material Tiberium prayed he would never be able to identify on sight, he particularly dapper in a tux rented from his uncle's place and reshaped to hold his lithe frame with just a little puff of phantom muscle in the upper back. In his hand he palmed a small black box, keeping it tight against his leg as Jill took the mic.

"Oh gosh," she wept, tears running her mascara in the hideous and perfect way, he was sure, she'd planned since she was ten, "I love you guys so much! This is like the most exciting and like amazing thing that could have ever, you know, happened to me and stuff. I can't believe it-" somehow, Tiberium thought, she probably couldn't despite holding court in the hall every day of the last two years- "I'm just so happy! Thanks guys, you're the best ever! San Dimas High School football, like, rules!"

Everyone clapped, a lot of them because they were equally vapid and just not as good at it, so they loved her right back, and the rest because almost everyone in the class who understood irreverence also wasn't there. Part and parcel, and all that. But there were exceptions. One of them took the mic next.

"Thanks everyone," he said. He paused, but did not relinquish the microphone, and his dreamy, thoughtful gaze just over everyone's heads sent all the girls a-titter, or at least the ones who could somehow convince themselves he was looking at them. But after several stretching moments, he glanced up and turned to his Queen.

"Your Majesty," he began, sending her into frightful giggles (the mascara being much more hideous than perfect at this point), "each day I pass you in the halls of our fair educational institution and wonder to myself, 'What mysterious depths does that young woman possess?' Surrounded by such fascinated creatures as her classmates become in her presence, is she content with such affections or does she strive for more? Does she dream of the great land beyond this, rife with the dire evils of our world, and how, by the sheer power of her charismatic will, she might draw all the peoples of the Earth together in a greater bond of harmony?

"Does she read our newspapers, scour the Internet for any crumb of journalistic integrity in the devolving realm of modern media, and weep at her own inability to know what is happening in the world? Does she wish to travel the planet and discern truth for herself, only to find herself thwarted by the expense of fuel for her father's private jet?

"Or is does she turn toward greater introspection? Does she gaze out her window at night, tired of the empty smiles and blind love, desperate for one person to hold her and help make everything right? One man who can gaze into her deep-" he squinted at her- "blue eyes and know her thoughts so intimately that she can confide her secrets without words, with nothing save the touch of her fingers to his lips so he knows the thoughts they share are to be acted upon without speech or hesitation?

"I believe all these things," said Tiberium, "and I believe I am that man." He settled down on one knee, opening the small black box and holding it aloft to the Queen. "Jill, will you marry me?"

The room hovered in silence utter and complete save the snap of camera shutters; just like a perfect teabagging, Tiberium thought. Jill leaned forward in a daze, reading slowly and out loud the small note attached to the ring: "Lift Me." So she did, frowning at the feel of plastic beneath her fingertips.

The quick reaction of aerosol hiss startled her, but, it is safe to say, not as much as the deflating of the air sacks in Tiberium's back and the explosion of sticky confetti rocketing out the tube hidden down the sleeve of his tux and spouting through the center of the ring box.

Tiberium sprung to his feet, arms high in victory. The roar of the crowd washed over him like thick surf. Queen Jill slumped to her knees, peeling small papers glittery with varied layers of makeup and soaked with the first real tears of her high school career. He glanced down at her, grinned bigger and yelled, "San Dimas High School football can suck my dick!" Then he threw down the mic and tromped offstage, at least until a dozen fellow seniors lifted him overhead and carried the conquering hero back to his limousine.

--------

Three days later, concussed and bleeding at the foot of the graduation podium, the sounds of one angry boyfriend distant in his ears, the grin still had not disappeared.

(Tiberium spends $1400 on a diamond ring for Valentine's Day and doesn't get laid)

Tiberium stood at the door of Jill's apartment, showing her a thin, placid smile. She smiled back, warmer, but not enough to outshine the befuddlement in her eyes.

"I had a great time tonight, Tiberium," she started.

"Good, good." His smile remained unchanged.

"I... the ring is beautiful. I'm honestly stunned by it. I can't thank you enough."

Tiberium offered a humble dip of his head. "I wanted you to have it."

"Well, sure, I just... it just seems like so much. I have friends who I don't think have engagement rings as nice as this, even though I guess I'm probably biased at the moment."

He shrugged gently. "It felt like the right gift."

"I can't even say I'm flattered, it doesn't feel like a strong enough word. I mean, it's not like you're... I mean..."

"Rich?"

"Well."

"It's ok. I'm not rich, but I do well enough."

"Okay. I didn't want to offend you."

"None taken." The smile widened a fraction of an inch.

"Okay." Jill plugged her key into the lock, paused, turned it, paused, opened the door. She took a step inside and turned towards him. "So."

"So." Tiberium moved not an inch, not a whisker, following her with his eyes and nothing else.

She rested her hand on the door, watching him, waiting. A quarter-minute passed in silence. She wiggled the door. "Um, okay... good night?"

He offered another small shrug. "If you wish."

Jill hardly looked at him, staring out into the hall. "I... yeah, I guess. Call me?"

Tiberium nodded, the smile remaining small and firm in its place. "I will."

"Okay," she said, slowly, slowly, shutting the door.

When the deadbolt turned, Tiberium swiveled on his heels and descended the three flights of stairs to the ground floor. He slipped out of the building, heard the main door lock shut behind him. Glancing up at the stars, then back at the apartments, he stopped a moment; his head swung around front, slow and measured. Staring at the snow on the sidewalk, his hands fell out of his pockets and he said to the air, "What the hell just happened?" He turned to the building one more time, jaw falling slack, and replayed the scene behind rapid blinking eyes. Holding his hand out to the door as if for alms, he waited for something or someone to come; but nothing and no one did.

Tiberium dropped his arm to his side, twisted around, slumped away from the building, and walked into traffic.

Tiberium glanced at the top of the mountain on which he stood. The resonating roar of the bear pack rolled toward him, a wall of sound thick enough to have its own mass. After it passed, he could hear the slow rumble of a baby avalanche beginning on the opposite side of the peak.

He tapped his foot, waiting.

Puffs of snow drifted from the mountain's highest reaches. First two, then four, then one; but the one was an unbroken line of tumbling powder increasing in size moment to moment, until, by the time they were close enough to be visible, Tiberium could only just make out the heads of the charging polar bear clan over top of the drift.

He threw a stick in the snow and held his ground.

The force of the ravenous growls pushed the snow ahead even faster, camouflaging their rush towards the sweetest, tenderest troll meat their tiny bear minds could ever envision. And in their fanatical rush for food, those tiny minds never sensed the danger of the little stick until the great arc of fire plumed out, spraying Tiberium with instant meltwater and turning every last animal to dry gray ash.

Tiberium turned around and looked at the sky. He sneered at something invisible, then spoke, as if to a presence only he was aware of.

"How do you think I got my Foror's in the first place?" he mocked. "You didn't think I was born with it up my ass, did you? That would be incredibly stupid... but then, you did go to all this trouble."

--------

Some indeterminate number of miles away, a teenage boy bashed his hands against his keyboard.

"It's not fair! It's not fair! I always lose the games!" he wailed.

"Oh, honey," came the plaintive voice from upstairs, "it's just a game. It'll be alright."

"But I always lose!"

"How about some cookies? Will that make you feel better?"

"Well... I guess it couldn't hurt," he said, shoving the keyboard onto the desk and running upstairs, wondering if maybe he should have done that long, long ago.

Marty McFly's hand hovered two inches from the pane of glass in much the same way his body hovered a dozen feet off the ground. There she was, again, just like he was there watching her again, his stomach knotting harder with every inescapable similarity he realized this held to the actions of his father so many years ago. He'd been at it so long, he no longer considered the side of her ample, strapped-in bust worth even a first look anymore. Now his fire lit whenever the lamp caught her hair just right, turning the brunette locks a dark and sultry red, but even this began to sink into the synapses of familiarity. By now he knew the contents of her Firefox bookmarks, the TV stations programmed into the remote he initially believed to be a %#%#*, and even felt a twinge of longing at the sight of her changing the sheets on her bed.

If he was going to do it, it had better be now.

Marty exhaled and tapped on the window.

His breath caught at the splay of shoulder-length hair across her cheek as she swung around, and he held it as she vanished from sight beneath the edge of the bed. As she reappeared and reached for the window with one hand, but wielded a can of, if he was lucky, pepper spray in the other, his body froze except for a twitch of the ankles that carried him a few feet back from the wall.

The window caught in a fully up position; she leaned away from it, her weapon hand well in front of her face.

"Who the !@#% are you?" she demanded.

"Ah, geez," he said. "I'm... well, I'm Marty." He held his hands out to his sides, as if for inspection.

"Yeah, well what the !@#%..." The girl's words trailed off, but her mouth hung open.

"Yes?"

"You're floating."

He clicked his heels together. "Yeah. Like it?"

"How are you doing that?" Her hand drooped to the windowsill.

"I'm from the future."

"You..." She frowned, backing away. "Come sit here so I can see those boots and I won't call the cops."

Marty levitated up to the window, sliding his feet across her comforter but resting his butt on the ridges of the sill. He glanced at her bed; an enormous book titled "The Complete Works of Arthur C. Clarke" was propped against the pillow. He bit back only part of his grin.

"What's so funny?" the girl asked.

"Nothing, nothing," he said, face straightening between heartbeats. "Don't touch them, but you can look all you want."

She rested her fingers on the tip of his left boot. No sooner did he begin to protest, however, than she said, "You're the peeping tom, remember? I'll do what I want unless you'd like the police to impound these things."

"Fair enough." He watched her fingers graze the metallic surface of the boots, then watched her bending over the boots to inspect them; his head fell back against the window, eliciting an audible groan. As her prodding pressure on his soles increased, he asked, desperate for something less arousing than the sense, the sight, the smell of her reality to think about, "What's your name?"

She glanced up at him as he glanced down, head still slanted back against the glass. "Elissa," she said.

"Elissa," he repeated. "Pretty name." Pretty did not describe the half of it for him. Why must she have the double-S that afflicted him with such a confounding sense of eroticism? Why could she not have another of the million and one names in the world that he would not be driven to repeat under his breath in desperate fear that she might hear him and label him too far obsessed to be worth whatever curiosity she might possess?

Why was her hand on his knee, her shoulder touching his arm, her nose grazing the sensitive nerves of his outer ear?

"I love guys from the future," she whispered.

--------

Marty watched her sleep from her bedside. The sheets were up under her arms now, and the heavy silver-heart locket rested on the bed, its chain caught in her loose grip. He thought about giving her one last kiss, but if she woke, her open eyes would saddle him with a weight as binding as a world. No, it was time to go.

He stepped through the open window, fell into the warm day, clicked his heels, and sped off into the blue spring sky.

The bonfire crackled and popped, twice the height of a man and twice that across. A hundred eager faces spread around it, jostling for a good view of the storyteller.

When they all settled down, he began.

--------

There was a man waiting to cross a street one day, he said, when a woman approached him with fingers covering her mouth. She had the slow, creeping steps of someone coming up to what might be a crime scene. Then she giggled and ruined the effect. The man, already glancing at her a bit sideways, took a step back.

"Naw, come on now." He flashed the kind of smile that puts people on movie screens. "You got me at a disadvantage. That's not fair."

The woman stared at the ground, cheeks flushing wine-red. "Julia," she mumbled.

"Hm?" He chuckled, turning his ear towards her. "Speak up now, it's no good to get shy just when you need to talk, right?"

She brought her eyes up slow, irises a shade of blue so bright it had to come from a laboratory. "Julia," she said again, chewing her lip.

"Julia. That's a lovely name. And may I say, you have gorgeous eyes, Julia."

The woman stiffened her neck just before her head tipped down again. "Thanks," she said, "it's amazing what you can do with a little technology. I mean, what modern technology can do."

"Ain't that the truth, right?"

"Well, um, Mr. Smith-"

"Will, please."

"R.. right, okay, Will, um... can I have your autograph? In my book?"

He nodded; this was usually how it went. "Sure, if you've got a pen. Where's your book?"

"Oh, uh, in my bag." Julia dug into the oversized black bag strapped over her shoulder. As she searched, she started turning her feet, and after a few moments the bag faced Will. It was a set of white checker squares, nothing special, until they stopped being checker squares and started being rhomboidal, then thin strands of white spiraling around each other in a slow hypnotic rhythm. It spun a little faster, and a little faster, and a little-

"Will? Mr. Smith?"

"Huh?" Will rubbed a bead of sweat from his forehead. The woman watched him, those big blue eyes cautious and curious. She held a pen in one hand, a book in the other.

"I... I didn't know what to do. You kind of spaced."

"Naw, I... naw, I'm good, I'm good. I dunno what that was. My bad." The charismatic smile slipped back into place; he took the book and pen. "Where would you like it?"

"Oh, just flip to a page."

He lifted an eyebrow. "You sure?"

Julia nodded. "That's my special book. I've gotten some other people to sign it, and what you capture comes in part from where people themselves decide to turn to in the book."

"Oh yeah? That's pretty cool." He closed his eyes, leafed through the pages, and opened them when he stopped. "Who else is in here?"

"Um, Spalding Gray, Steve Fossett... book's been in the family a long time, my granddaddy got Amelia Earhart's..."

She kept talking, but Will no longer made out any of her words, nor those on the page; they twisted and writhed, collapsing into a maddened jumble that resembled the snow of a dead television channel.

A few minutes later, Julia picked the book off the sidewalk, slipped it into her bag, and walked on.

--------

"And that's how Will Smith came to Mannoroth," Tiberium said.

"Is not," said Will Smith, sitting on the log next to him.

"It is until you do story time," said Tiberium, walking off into the night, laughing.

(Bob Barker and Jerry Seinfield rule the world after the sky turns purple and mango trees grow marijuana)

Ocean waves churned against smooth golden sand, blue water whispering splashes over the feet of children standing in the way of the tide. A grove of stunted mango trees swayed in the grasses behind the beach. Close by, a dozen stunning women in translucent bikinis performed gentle labors atop a large dais, surrounding a smaller platform with two gilded lawn chairs. Two waved enormous feathered fans at the men in the chairs, evaporating the sweat off their furry tanned chests. Two others handled the tools of pedicure, clipping and buffing gnarled nails until their gleam rivaled the sun's. And in those chairs, Bob Barker and Jerry Seinfeld leaned back, eyes closed, and let easy, languid smiles creep across their faces.

"This is the best job in the world," said Bob, gripping a joint the size of a small dog in his wrinkled fist and pulling a hit off it.

Jerry glanced over at Bob. "Who smokes a dub the size of their head?" he asked. "Who are these people?"

"I'm these people!" snapped Bob. "Don't remind me of the only downside to this job, that I have to share it with you!"

"Puff puff pass, sir, puff puff pass."

Bob grumbled and handed the joint over. Jerry put his lips to the tip and inhaled.. and inhaled.. and inhaled. He opened his eyes, waved the joint at the girl fanning him, almost set the fan on fire, swung his arm over his head, and finally held it, drooping, out for Bob to take back. "I am these people too," he said, slumped against the arm of his chair.

They basked for a little while. Then Jerry said, "Bob."

"What?"

Jerry let one finger roll out of his closed hand to point at Bob, saying nothing.

"Well?"

"I forgot."

"Idiot." Bob glanced at the girl working on his feet. "Don't mess up my toes this time," he grumbled to her placid, non-reacting face.

"New Caribbea!"

Bob took another hit, flopped his head back, then let it roll left to look at Jerry again. "What the hell's a New Caribbea?"

"I know!" Jerry waved his hand around.

"You know what?"

"Why is it New Caribbea? It's over five hundred years old!"

"There's no such thing as New Caribbea, you dumpy sitcom reject."

Bob set his head back and squinted up at the deep violet sky. "How did you know, Jimi? How did you know?"

"Jimi had a seeing eye dog," Jerry said.

"What are you on about now?"

"It was to read the signs in the restaurant."

"Seinfeld, I can't believe no one ever shot you in the face. Leroy!" A dark-skinned midget shot out from a door affixed to the front of the dais.

"Yeah boss yeah boss?"

"Get thee to the mango trees! Roll one of them up for me on your way back. And don't touch the girls on the way."

"Yes sir yes sir."

Leroy ran off to the grove. Bob watched him hump his way up the tree and laughed, then coughed, then chuckled gray smoke. Then he took off his pants and left them on the head of the pedicure girl. All the movement made Jerry squint over at Bob.

"Oh god," he said, "that thing is more unnecessary than razor blade disposal in an airplane bathroom!"

When Leroy he came back with a ripe mango full of juicy weed, he almost dropped it at the Bob's and Jerry's feet. Shaking, he gave the mango to Bob, averting his eyes from the lecherous grin. As soon as he felt the fruit leave his hands, he dashed off the dais and back in the door, unsteady, elderly feet stomping along behind him.

He couldn't lock the door, though.

After it finally closed, the girls just watched each other as midgety screams echoed underneath their feet. Some of them looked at Jerry; he looked back with deep red eyes and grinned a little.

"What kind of person does it take to rape a black midget underneath the dais of his own throne?" he said. "I mean, who does that? Who are these people?"

All the girls looked at him and let their lips curl up, just a little. Jerry laughed and fell asleep.

On the beach, the people trudged through another day of their endless vacations.

And the soft rolling of the waves made them forget about the terrible muffled weeping at their backs.

[1. General][likemyhorns]: where is he[1. General][Stickyhands]: hes like ten minutes late[1. General][Gnomesdoanal]: i have homework to do[1. General][Philthy]: i just want my mail to stop getting spammed[1. General]]Philthy]: it takes too long to delete[1. General][Stickyhands]: ya[1. General][Gnomesdoanal]: ya[1. General][Nerdkingone]: ok guys im here sorry[1. General][likemyhorns]: its about time[1. General][Nerdkingone]: sister was on the computer[1. General][Fredthompson]: whats the plan[1. General][Nerdkingone]: ok[1. General][Nerdkingone]: were gonna go in the dark portal[1. General][Nerdkingone]: were gonna use the ally and horde fight against demons to our advantage[1. General][Nerdkingone]: tiberium cant see us all with it going on[1. General][Nerdkingone]: rez spawn fast and just keep fighting[1. General][Gnomesdoanal]: wont tiberium spawn again if we kill him[1. General][Nerdkingone]: no[1. General][Nerdkingone]: that guy kowz said if we kill him and burn the forors he wont rez[1. General][Bigpussyelf]: i dont know if we can do it[1. General][likemyhorns]: ya[1. General][Philthy]: ya[1. General][Nerdkingone]: we can[1. General][Nerdkingone]: i macrod a speech[1. General][Nerdkingone]: Transfers! On the other side of that portal waits our nemesis, Tiberium Xerzes! Ever since we came to Mannoroth, he has spammed our mail with the skulls of conquered kings! Insulted us and called us queens! Threatened us with Seinfeld and Will Smith![1. General][Nerdkingone]: But this is where we hold him! This is where we fight! This is where he dies![1. General][Nerdkingone]: A new age has begun! An age of freedom from spam, without prejudice to transfers! And all will know that 300 transfers gave their last breath over and over to defend it![1. General][Nerdkingone]: No retreat, no surrender! That is Warcraft law, and by Warcraft law we will stand and fight... and respawn if we die. The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against One, and that by the time this battle is over, even a god-king can bleed.[1. General][Nerdkingone]: Transfers! Ready your Cheetos and eat hearty. For tonight, we dine in hell![1. General][Philthy]: woo![1. General][likemyhorns]: yayayaya[1. General][Gnomesdoanal]: wootwoot[1. General][Nerdkingone]: lets go!

Left [1. General-Blasted Lands]Joined [1. General-Hellfire Peninsula]

[1. General][Stickyhands]: wtf[1. General][Gnomesdoanal]: why arent the horde and ally fighting the demons[1. General]Fredthompson]: and why are they staring at us[1. General][likemyhorns]: why are the demons carrying tiberium through the crowd on a throne[1. General][Philthy]: wtf is that throne made of golden forors[1. General][Nerdkingone]: o god run run run run[1. General][Gnomesdoanal]: the portal is stuck[1. General][Gnomesdoanal]: i can't get through[1. General][likemyhorns]: me either[1. General][Stickyhands]: aaaaaaa[1. General][Fredthompson]: aaaaaaa[1. General][Nerdkingone]: nooooooo

(Explaining Forors spam to your son, like you would the "birds and the bees" talk)

This is a public service announcement.

(Fade in to a picture of a spinning Earth with a radio tower on top emitting lightning bolts.)

Narrator (V.O.): Parents, are your children beginning to ask uncomfortable questions? Are you unsure how to answer, perhaps because your parents never sat down and discussed these things with you? Family, Children, and Tiny Troll services are here to help. Please sit back and watch this educational film on how to speak to your children about some of the difficulties they might face growing up.

(Fade out. Fade in on twelve-year-old Billy at his computer, tapping his keyboard and clicking his mouse morosely. Dad enters.)

Dad: "Hey kiddo!"

Billy: "Hi Dad."

Dad: "Hey now. What's with the long face? No one ganked you in world PvP, did they?"

(Dad slaps Billy on the shoulder. Billy sighs.)

Billy: "Ganking and PvP aren't the same thing, Dad."

Dad: "Oh. I see. Well, then, what's the problem, slugger?"

Billy: "I just don't understand some things."

(Dad nods knowingly.)

Dad: "That's pretty common for a growing boy. But I always swore that I would be totally honest with you no matter what you wanted to know, so ask away and I'll help you however I can."

(Billy shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He looks up to Dad.)

Billy: "Dad, where does Foror's spam come from?"

(Dad pauses, then pulls the other chair in Billy's room over and sits down.)

Dad: "I'm glad you asked, son. There are a lot of rumors kids like to tell each other about Foror's spam. Does the mailman bring Foror's spam? Is there a Foror's fairy that drops it down the chimney? Or is it just a collection of randomly assembled bytes that spontaneously invade chat channels throughout the internet, without rhyme or reason to the process?"

Billy: "Wow Dad, people think all those things?"

Dad: "And more, son. Much more."

Billy: "Are they true?"

(Dad laughs.)

Dad: "Not at all! Why, those stories are a bigger load of bull**#* than when your mother said she wasn't sleeping with her the@#@!@#. That's why it's good you're asking me, so when other people tell you these things about Foror's spam, you can say you know better. Especially to your mother."

(Dad folds his hands together, looking thoughtful.)

Dad: "It's like this, Billy. When a gamer and an internet meme have an attraction to one another, they often decide to spend a lot of time together. And sometimes, if they spend enough time together, they can fall in love. When that happens, the gamer will take his copy/paste macro and put it into the chat box."

(Dad pauses, gazing up while collecting his words.)

Dad: "This happens a lot. Gamers tend to use memes until they get tired of them, then toss them aside for the trendiest or hottest one. But if a gamer loves a meme strongly enough, and never tires of it even when all his friends say there's a new star on the scene, then all that work of putting his macro in the box grows and grows until it becomes full-fledged spam."

Billy: "Wow. But what about Foror's spam, Dad?"

Dad: "Billy, you must not be prejudiced just because Foror's spam is a little different from other sorts of spam. A lot of people who find spam cute or funny in small doses begin to hate the types of spam that won't go away. They want to lock it away, put it behind closed doors where they won't have to think about it or acknowledge it exists. But that's not fair to the Foror's spam. It was born from the same caring between gamer and meme that created every other type of spam. Its endlessness doesn't give us a right to hate it; it means we have to be understanding of its special needs. Ok?"

(Billy nods.)

Dad: "As far as how Foror's spam is created... I said I'd be honest, Billy, and I will. My guess is that it's a product of a gamer who pounds his macro into the chat box too hard for too long, but I don't know for sure. It's ok to not know everything, though. It means you just have to explore this question for yourself, and not be satisfied until you have an answer you feel is the right one. Now, is there anything else you want to ask?"

(Billy shakes his head.)

Dad: "Well, I'm glad we had this talk. And I hope now you know everything you wanted to know about where Foror's spam comes from."

Billy: "I sure do, Dad. Thanks a lot."

(Dad and Billy turn to the camera and smile, giving a thumbs up. Fade out. Fade in on the earth and radio tower.)

Narrator (V.O.): "And now you know how to deal with the difficult questions your children will ask. Best of luck to you, parents, and good night.

He wasn't catatonic when they found him, but it would be hard to blame them for the mistake. Rocking on his heels, arms wrapped around his knees, large blank pupils staring at distant nothing, the troll offered no response to the explorers traipsing around his lair, soiled with the remains of mice, frogs, and a wild parakeet. Haunted by the non-present presence of the cave's inhabitant, however, they left, setting up camp halfway down the mountain, the cave sitting within the end of their spyglass' range.

The next day, embarking back up towards the peak, the explorers debated what they would find. Was he a vegetable? They would have to evacuate him for humanitarian reasons if he was. But how could he have lived up there so long? Where did the carcasses come from, if not from his own hunting expeditions, unless frogs rained on snowy heights here? Could he be a hermit traumatized by an event only just preceding their arrival? Perhaps, but what in the world ever happened on Wildhammer?

Their voices grew softer as they approached the cave mouth. It was different already; no crunch of gravel from the pendulum-like roll of mindless feet. Lining up at the side of the cave mouth, the token female craned her neck around the rock, into the decrescendo of light into pitch darkness. The cave had not been that deep yesterday; something should have been audible, at the very least.

"Hello?" she asked. Her voice came back to her, but nothing else.

The token white guy stepped around her, two feet into the cave. His lips parted, as if ready to speak, but when the blue toes appeared in a glimmer of reflected sunlight, he froze.

Steps of unnatural silence brought him into view. He was not bare to the loincloth now; a tattered robe in tones of earth and lava lay haggard over his shoulders, revealing a line of chest and abdomen to public view. One of his tusks was chipped in several places, the other wrapped in heavy bandages. In one hand he clutched a yellow book in better condition than him or anything around him.

The full party arrayed themselves at the cave entrance, watching the raggedy troll approach, but his radiating presence left them without words in their drying mouths.

"I," he said, just over the gentle spring wind, "am Tiberium."

"Up up up up up up up up," he added.

The token black guy turned to his companions. "Did he say 'up up up' or 'buh buh buh'?" he asked, but because he was also wearing a red shirt, he was immediately frost shocked off the edge of the mountain. The rest of the explorers gasped in horror, watching him flail into the nothing of the clouds below, then forgot about him and his question altogether.

"Up," Tiberium said again.

The token toker took a toke, waving his joint in circles. "Dude, are you like, some kind of priest or something? What's with the book, man?"

Tiberium gazed down at the book resting along his forearm. On the spine the explorers could see a gaudy red circle with a line through the head of a dragon. Almost in unison their knees grew weak; the yellow book was, in fact, gold. The circle and line were encrusted rubies, and the dragon's head tiny diamonds with a touch of onyx for eyes.

"Good lord," said the white guy.

"They see your glory, Foror's." Tiberium kissed the dragons' head. "UP UP UP UP UP!" His eyes squinched shut, teeth bared against some unseen source of pain. "UP!"

Tiberium raised his own hand. "I survive. Do not approach, lest Foror's mistake your intent. His holy UP UP UP UP argh..." He crouched, free hand balancing him on the ground. "His holy power is unforgiving and quick to judge. And he is already displeased with me."

"Maybe you just need some better weed," observed the toker. "I bet you can't grow anything up here worth burning, much less smoking."

"DO YOU DOUBT MY POWER UP UP UP UP UP!" Tiberium sprung to his feet, hands flashing blue, red, green, his roar echoing off the cave walls and tumbling down the mountainside to the unseen fields below. "UP UP UP!"

The white guy and female backed to the edge of the mountain path. The toker just kind of stood there, mystified by the troll's colorful hands. "No, dude," he said reverently. "I was just trying to help."

"Whoa," he added.

Tiberium struggled over to the wall, resting his shoulder against it. "I understand. You should all go now. You are not meant to be here. My penance is solitude. I will have it, one way or another. Do not end up like your friend."

"Who?" asked the white guy. "Oh," he said a moment later.

"Go."

The explorers wound their way down the mountain in silence. In a day or two, when they had absorbed most of what happened, they could discuss what to do next. Would the first question be whether or not to tell anyone?

No.

The first question would be, on Wildhammer, would they find anyone to tell?